Some 31% of Russians mistrust Trump, another 19% are disappointed with his policies

US President Donald Trump

MOSCOW, April 17. /TASS/. The US missile strike on a Syrian military base has eroded Russians’ attitude towards Washington and US President Donald Trump, a survey conducted by the Russian Public Opinion Research Center showed on Monday.

"Today, Russians’ attitude towards US President Donald Trump is more negative than a month ago: the number of negative answers grew from 7% to 39%, and positive answers dropped from 38% to 13%," the survey said.

Some 31% of Russians mistrust Trump, another 19% are disappointed with his policies and some 29% are indifferent towards him. Compared with March, fewer Russians show respect, sympathy, or hope in regards to him, the poll shows.

Over the past month, Russian-US relations have deteriorated, according to the survey. Some 42% of Russians view bilateral ties as tense, 28% believe they are chilly and another 12% called them hostile.

Most Russians - 63%- still think that armed confrontation between Russia, the United States and NATO is impossible or highly unlikely, but the share of those who say that war is possible (or is already ongoing) has reached 30%.

The pollster’s Director General, Valery Fyodorov, said Trump’s aggressive behavior has resurrected mistrust and malice towards the US, which has been inherent in Russian society over the past two decades. "Although hopes for a new thaw in bilateral relations have not vanished, our fellow citizens are less optimistic about Trump now," he stressed.

The poll was conducted on April 11-12 on the basis of interviews with 1,800 people, with a margin of error of 95% certainty, not exceeding 3.5%.

On April 7, the US military fired a total of 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles from its warships in the Mediterranean Sea on Syria’s Al Shayrat air base located in the country’s province of Homs. The US attack on the Syrian government forces reportedly came in response to the alleged use of chemical weapons in Syria’s Idlib on April 4.

According to data from the Russian Defense Ministry, Syrian warplanes delivered an air strike on April 4 that hit workshops where terrorists were producing munitions with chemical agents supplied to Iraq and used in Aleppo. However, Washington concluded that Damascus had used chemical weapons.